


Learning a Trade: Smith

by hbdragons



Series: Learning a Trade [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Behavior, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, King's Landing, Missing Scene, Valyrian Steel Swords, learning a trade
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-16
Updated: 2019-08-16
Packaged: 2020-09-02 11:24:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20275126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hbdragons/pseuds/hbdragons
Summary: Tobho Mott never intended to let Gendry leave his service, too talented. He gets paid a lot of money and even then he still curses Jon Arryn to all the seven hells.But initially there had been three boys he accepted to train.





	Learning a Trade: Smith

**Author's Note:**

> This is pure speculation. It isn't fluff, I think it's a bit more tragic than anything else. It's possible some of this is abuse (I think it is) but it's the kind of thing GoF is known for. Also, this explores what makes Gendry who he is. And what he is not. 
> 
> For the record, there's a blink and you'll miss it Gendry's first crush. Do not read this for that - if this turns into a series, this serves strictly as a prequel, there no pairing for a reason.

Mott comes around the corner to see Red Cloaks looking for his trade. He opens the store, sells them swords and then he feels nothing but pain.

"Master Mott, what happened?" a woman's voice says, she sounds young, Mott thinks. She somehow gets him to his cot, the one he keeps in the forge for night when he worked too hard, too long, and he's be in danger if he didn't have his wits about him outside.

"You'll be alright now, I have to go, I'll be back to check tomorrow." And just like that, the woman left, and Mott fell asleep before he could stop himself. Later, he noticed, with a blinding headache and bruised ribs, that she'd closed the door. He cursed the missed day of trade but bless her good thinking for protecting him from getting robbed or worse. Clearly, it was time he had some apprentices. Then they could wake up in the middle of the night to get the forge ready and do the small chores and nails and goddamn horseshoes.

_Three years later_

"I trust that the sum will be sufficient to take the boy on as your apprentice," Lord Arryn said. The woman who brought the boy stepped forward, smiled and thanked Mott profusely. She seemed kind and she reminded Mott of someone but he couldn't remember who. Giving up on remembering, Mott looked at the boy - at five years old he was still taller than most Flea Bottom boys his age. He looked tough though - like he could wield a hammer soon and do the small work just fine until then.

"Aye, it'll do fine. I'll teach him the work, good and proper. You need not worry, my lord," Mott bowed and Lord Arryn frowned at Mott, smiled at the woman and the boy and left. He never came back. But the money came steadily, without fault, right up until after the boy left.

-//-

The very next year, on a hot and humid day like few other that year, Mott kept Gendry behind to clean the forge twice over, every nook and cranny. The poor boy didn't understand what he'd done wrong. But he frowned and cleaned, and cleaned some more and eventually the frown stayed but his work that day improved. Mott felt bad, Gendry was a hard worker, the best he'd seen of the bastards who'd promised they'd work hard to Mott's exact requirements but none of them did and so he'd dismissed scores of them. But he'd keep Gendry, if he could. He'd planned to send Gendry home or teach him a new shape and method to get it when Jon Arryn's Captain of the Guards came and delivered him a letter and another boy. This one looked like Gendry but without the frown and older. And stupider as it turned out.

-//-

Robbie was very proud and very strong. He broke as many swords as he made. He made them fine but he was impatient and rude to the swords. Gendry could see that they needed more tempering. Or more time spent polishing them. More care all round. Gendry was forbidden to help anyone, Master Mott said. He still sometimes let Robbie bully him into tempering the sword for him. Those swords always were better. But Gendry kept his opinion to himself. 

One day, Robbie didn't turn up at the forge. Gendry was working hard to build the fire. He was there and Robbie wasn't so he got off his cot at the back of the forge and got to work. When Master Mott came and saw him with the bellows he swore long and hard. Gendry blinked, shocked and impressed, he couldn't have thought of even half of those himself. he tucked the more creative ones in the back of his mind and frowned instead.

"Where's that lazybones? Did he at least show up?" Mott demanded then swore again. He gave Gendry his tasks, finished starting the forge's fires and left to make discreet inquiries. 

By the time Gendry finished the first set of door bolts, Master Mott came back, black with fury but also, Gendry thought, worried underneath all that anger. He threw a furious glance at Gendry but said nothing before getting to work.

Soon after, Meryno came into the forge. He was late but he was a highborn bastard so Mott paid him no mind beyond pointing in the direction of the same table where Gendry was hard at work. 

"Have you heard, little Gendry?" Meryno could whisper really well, like it was his trade instead of forging. Which Gendry though slightly uncharitably, would be a relief since he was terrible at forging anything but small things. Preferably gold things. Gendry tried to talk to him no more than was polite, which, he'd learnt from Meryno, could simply mean a raised eyebrow. Predictably, at the gesture, Meryno went ahead and told him.

"The fool though he'd impress a fair maid, really a whore but once he got drinking he didn't care. He told her he's the King's bastard. Even, since he is older than the Prince, if the King wanted a better hair he could legitimise him. Said he'd even met him once, when he visited his mum and see him. A lie, probably, Robert doesn't care about his bastards, he has so many. Anyway, he was overheard, so after the whore dumped him on his arse, the Red Cloaks surrounded him, he's ..." Meryno trailed off, smiled, looked at Mott, and nodded to Gendry. Like it was nothing. Like a man hadn't died, probably brutally. Gendry had known Robbie for a year, he didn't really care for him, he was a bully and a brute to the littlest kids. But he still died because of stupidity, not because he had committed a crime or anything like that.

-//-

Sometimes, Gendry dreamt of his mum. He loved those dreams. When he had them, he was always warm and comfortable and loved. She would sing and baby Gendry would dance around their little room, no rhyme or reason, just to get mamma to laugh. He'd cry silently, in his sleep but always wake up with a smile and a parched throat. Some other times, he'd dream of something which as a rule he'd always forget soon as he'd open his eyes. Sometime he'd delay it but it always slipped away. But then he'd be in that moment and he'd recognise it and think this is where I was supposed to be.

It's the same when they lose Meryno. They're in the forge and some customers come in, bright and early. They're drunk and loud and don't take kindly to not being served. It was too early for the forge to be hot enough already to be able to fix their blades. What made it worse is that Meryno had never learnt not to look the highborns in the eye, not when they saw you as beneath them, like the dirt in the road. Gendry only fully wakes up when he gets that queer feeling he'd been and seen this before. No on knows there's a cot back here, and he made no sound. He heard the shocked silence, the footsteps running, the last gasp of breath then all he hears is the blood rushing in his ears and he only sees the red behind his eyelids. That's how Mott finds him and he keeps him there while the body is removed and the blood cleaned from the edge of the forge. It had been an accident, he's told but he's understood the lesson anyway. Gendry is eight and he understands, if you are a Waters, no one cares if you die. Besides, Gendry is just Gendry.

-//-

_Ten years for nothing!_ is all Gendry can think. A lord had come and now Gendry's for the Wall, just like that. He packs what few belongings he's managed to collect over those years. He wouldn't say he'd miss King's Landing but this is not how he wanted to leave. And he'd miss Mott, however much he wants to curse him now. Mott knows what Gendry knows - you cannot fight highborns, you won't win, you'd just get your friends killed. He sighs and turns to leave. Mott stops him. They won't hug, he knows that much but Mott has something to tell him, and Gendry will listen, he owes the man that much.

"I know you blamed me, for when your mother died, when I kept you here two days. You didn't get to say goodbye. I didn't let you go and instead kept you here because she asked me. Naano came and told me herself. She said her friend is sick from something one of the tavern clients brought from outside the city. She died before anyone knew how bad it was. It's why you couldn't see her. She didn't want you to remember her that way. They had to burn the lot - your few toys and the clothes. I am sorry you didn't say goodbye and she would be proud of you now."

Gendry was baffled and apprehensive. He was sure he was going to the Wall, not certain death. What else would make Mott talk that much, for that long, apologise and imply he was proud of him?

-//-

When the boy had gone, no hate in his eyes and no more tense than a lamb to the slaughter, Mott closed the shop and cursed to high heaven. He cursed as long and as loud as he dared. Any bit of good he had, he had put in that boy. Who had never asked for anything, except to make his own projects with the scrap metal, like that blasted horned helmet he was so fond of. If it hadn't been so well made he'd have thrown it in the fire. But the boy had done good work. The boy had worked and worked, and never let his tiredness slow him from doing Mott's bidding. He'd done big pieces and small one, rough work and delicate work. More often than not, he'd been covered in soot and grime and never once complained. He'd never asked for more coin, even if Mott wouldn't have given him it. Mott would have kept him. He was too good and ever curious of how to do better work. He'd been deliberately careless with the Valeryan spell necessary to reforge Valeryan steel. He hoped the boy had put it in his box, in the back of his head, like he'd told Mott he does with everything important. He didn't believe the boy would survive. He could, if he kept his head low and his mouth shut, like he'd done so far, but the world was worse than King's Landing. The city was like a maze, for the rats of King's Landing to hide and survive, in nooks and crannies where no one would look. But out in the open...

-//-

Gendry followed Yoren, and when the crowds rushed by, listened and stayed put, out of the way, until the man would came back. Except, someone shoved Gendry hard at the wall, and as he hit his head and his eyes drooped low, he could hear rushing footsteps, a face, hallowed in reddish-brown hair. Stupidly, instead of getting angry, he heard himself saying, nonsensically: _It'll be alright._


End file.
